Sleaze helped to propel Tony Blair to power nine years ago and sleaze will help to end his political career, sooner rather than later. The prime minister came to office having successfully exploited voters’ revulsion over a “degenerate” Tory government which they saw as sleazy and divided. “Sleaze has become the hallmark of the dying days of this administration,” he said before the 1997 election. “Whiter than white”, “tough on sleaze, tough on the causes of sleaze”; the phrases tripped lightly off his tongue.
Now he is paying for that sanctimonious cant. His situation, moreover, is worse than that of his predecessor. John Major, for all his faults, was never personally embroiled in financial sleaze. Mr Blair, by contrast, is up to his neck in it. The journey from 1997 to 2006 has been a long one. Within six months of coming to power Mr Blair was caught up in his first scandal over party funding, Labour’s receipt of a £1m donation from Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss, and the government’s resulting decision to push for its exemption from a Europe-wide ban on tobacco advertising. His response was to go on television and, in full “People’s Princess” mode, tell the nation how sorry he was. Not only was he “hurt and upset” by the suggestion that he would go out of his way to accommodate party donors, but the people who suggested it had got him wrong.
His words then are worth recalling. “I hope,” he said, “people know me well enough, and realise the type of person I am, to realise I would never do anything improper. I never have. I think most people who have dealt with me think I’m a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am.”
Contrast that with his stumbling performance on Thursday when confronted with questions about his party treasurer’s revelation that he had known nothing about loans to Labour by rich donors. Mr Blair’s responses, interspersed with hesitations and lawyerly “as far as I’m aware” caveats, sounded like those of a man who would not willingly submit himself to a lie detector test.
This month will be remembered as the tipping point for Mr Blair and new Labour. Sleaze and dodginess have been the steady drip-drip of this government; cash-for-access, free holidays, double resignations (by Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett), Railtrack, Rover, Cherie Blair’s flat purchases in Bristol with the help of a dodgy middleman, her paid speaking engagements and the scandal over postal voting.
In the past three weeks that drip has turned into a deluge, thanks in part to the efforts of this newspaper. We revealed that Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, had signed the mortgage document that enabled her husband to bring an alleged bribe of £350,000 from Italy into this country. We broke the news that the Appointments Commission, set up to maintain the integrity of the House of Lords, had blocked the peerages of three wealthy Labour donors, Chai Patel, Sir David Garrard and Barry Townsley. Then, last weekend, we revealed that all three had given secret loans to the Labour party.
The significance of this was that loans to political parties, many of which are subsequently converted to gifts, do not have to be declared. The only inference to be drawn from their use is that this was a device to avoid disclosure, while at the same time leaving Labour — and thus the government — even more beholden to these rich donors. Mr Blair knew this, which is why he tried to buy them off with peerages. The Appointments Commission, to its credit, smelt a rat. Even without knowing about the loans, it doubted the suitability of the prime minister’s nominees.
Many in the Labour party have been unhappy with their leader’s affection for the company of rich folk. They have watched as Labour donors are routinely rewarded with knighthoods and peerages. They have seen some of these donors, Lord Sainsbury and Lord Drayson, effectively buy themselves ministerial positions. As so often, they feel have been lied to. Now they are saying enough is enough.
That was what led Jack Dromey, the party’s treasurer, to toss a hand grenade into Downing Street last week, when he revealed that he knew nothing about these loans. That led Mr Blair to beat a hasty retreat, promising that all future loans will be declared and that prime ministers should no longer make nominations for the House of Lords. This is not easy for him. Mr Blair has been the biggest dispenser of political patronage in modern times, creating 292 life peers to Margaret Thatcher’s 216.
Now voters have had enough. Our poll today shows that Mr Blair’s approval rating is the lowest since he became Labour leader nearly 12 years ago. By four to one, people think he has routinely given out peerages in return for donations and loans. The vast majority think he has acted improperly over loans to the party and that he is sleazy.
It is not just party donations and loans. The Jowell affair exposed a financial lifestyle, with large sums of money flowing in and out of the household budget, offshore accounts and hedge funds, that is alien to most ordinary people. The Blairs, with their plush London home and £4m of mortgages, are displaying an almost Marie Antoinette-like contempt for their voters and party.
Most in our poll who declared a view think Mr Blair should go before the end of the year and that in doing so he would strengthen the Labour party. That is fast becoming the conventional wisdom. Would we be better off with Gordon Brown? He is clean on the party funding issue (although he would prefer us to forget his unwholesome association with Geoffrey Robinson), but will be for ever associated in the public mind as a tax grabber and as a chancellor who has squandered public money on inadequate public services. At least if Mr Brown takes over soon, voters will have had a chance to have a proper look at him by the time the next election comes around.
The prime minister is not willing to go yet. His search for a moment when he can leave on a high note is becoming desperate. But the longer he postpones his departure the greater will be the discredit. The opposition, his own backbenchers and Gordon Brown cannot shift him. But what of his friends? Is there no honest man or woman among them with the guts to tell him the game is up? Each man kills the thing he loves. Mr Blair is slowly killing new Labour along with his own good name.
